Ummm… so, I started watching Young Justice again. I heard about the new season and I'm super excited because it looks like we will be getting Damian and Spoiler. Which will be awesome. But Jason needs to be in it too so… yeah, plot bunnies. This takes place on July 4, just as the Reach is being kicked out of Earth Space – because I assume they had a lot of ships with a lot of kids being experimented on so, yeah. Ages? Dick is 19, Jason is 15 (since he was dead for a while), and Tim should be about 12-13. Bruce is Bruce-aged. Do not have a Beta so please excuse any grammatical errors or spelling errors, if you see any let me know and I'll fix them. (^_^")

Chapter 1: Lazarus

Barbara sighed as she moved from one pod to the next, slowly making her way down a line of kidnapped children all while dispensing the rehearsed "You are okay, things will be fine, we need you to remain calm and get checked out by our doctors…"

It had been a long night. The reach was officially being forced off of Earth with the caveat that all the kidnapped children would be returned at once. The League could take their time with this now. There was no need to question the children beyond finding out who they were and where they had come from, still with the threat ended their actions did not need to be so desperate. So here they were – rows of them, still trapped in pods and possibly having undergone unknown levels of torture at the hands of the aliens. Many of them had vacant looks in their eyes, reminiscent of POWs Barbara had seen pictures of in History class at Gotham Academy. She turned to see Wondergirl giving out the same speech, but Cassie glanced over meaningfully when she caught Barbara looking at her. She jumped a little as a firework went off over the bay, the bang reverberating through her and making several of the children jump in fear.

Barbara moved on to the next pod.

Inside, there was a boy in a red hoodie. His dark hair was matted with sweat and what looked to be blood. Dirt left a grimy film over everything and when Barbara moved to unlock the pod, a thin layer of grit rained out. The boy coughed and wheezed, leaning down and further obscuring his features. He looked to be no older than 14 or 15.

Barbara opened her mouth to give her rehearsed speech, only for the words to get caught in her throat. There was something oddly familiar about this boy. Something that reminded her of Dick or Tim. He was still coughing, and with tentative fingers, Barbara reached out to see if he was alright. Heat emanated from him.

Teal eyes peaked up at her, over-bright with fever and exhaustion, but absolutely unmistakable.

Barbara gasped, withdrawing her hand as though she'd touched a snake. The boy's eyes closed a moment later and he was falling forward, straight into her arms. For a moment, everything seemed frozen. A million thoughts ran through her mind and not one would slow down long enough for her to figure out what to do.

So, she screamed.

"Help!" She cried, as she slowly lowered the boy to the ground, still clutching him tightly. "Help!" She repeated. Cassie was with her in an instant, gasping loudly as she caught sight of who was on the ground. It confirmed Barbara's suspicions enough to bend over the boy, forehead-to-forehead.

A tear trickled down from behind Barbara's mask. "It's going to be alright, Jason. We've got you now."

Barbara had stayed with the boy all the way to the League's secure hospital. Inside, she waited with Jason as the medical team checked him out. He was given oxygen, anti-biotics, and an IV was placed through his skin. They removed his red hoody in the process, revealing a patchwork of purple and blue bruising that made Barbara sick. His hands are torn to shreds, some fingers missing fingernails altogether. The doctor began cleaning and bandaging those hands immediately, cursing as he did so. Barbara fought the urge to be sick. Still, the boy hadn't opened his eyes again and she was almost grateful for it. She didn't think she could handle it right now.

"Oh, Jason…" She trailed off, realizing that she had a few calls to make.

She stood, patting the hand of the boy who had been like a younger brother to her, before stepping out of the room. She opened her phone and hit the speed dial.

Dick answered on the second ring. "Hey Babs, how's it going down there?" His voice wasn't exactly happy, but it was at least more enlightened than it had been since Wally's death.

She hated to ruin it.

"I need you and B to get to the League hospital ASAP."

He must have caught the quiver in her voice because there was a long pause on the other end. "What's going on, Barbara?"

A tear slid down into her mouth as she said, "Dick, it's…" She shook her head, "Just please hurry."

With that, she hung up and turned back to the room. Jason was still out of it, grimacing in his sleep and whimpering slightly. She made her way to the bed, placing a trembling hand to the boy's forehead. The whisper became louder.

"B…"

Barbara's eyes widened.

"My dad…"

"Please…"

Barbara swallowed thickly. She turned to the nurse in the room, who was still fiddling with Jason's IV. "I need you to get a blood sample for me. We need to run DNA."

Though she knew who this was, had felt it in her heart, she knew Bruce would need to be sure. She gently laid a kiss to the boy's forehead and then left the room with the vial of blood the nurse handed her.

Dick Grayson, still in the guise of Nightwing, leaned back against a large white column, waiting rather impatiently for Bruce to finish speaking with the other Leaguers. Aqualad began handing out instructions soon thereafter and Dick would have smiled proudly at the team if not for the heavy weight in his heart. He gestured for Bruce, and his mentor responded immediately, coming to stand beside Dick.

"What's wrong? I would have thought you'd be with your team by now," Bruce said, smiling slightly despite Dick's grim demeaner.

"Barbara called. Something's happened on Earth," Dick said quietly.

Bruce's eyes narrowed behind the cowl. "Was there a problem with the pods?" The older man was already looking over to Superman, ready to call out should that be the case, but Dick shook his head.

"She didn't say, only that we needed to get down there as soon as possible. She… sounded like she'd seen a ghost." His voice trembled ever so slightly at the memory and he clenched his fist.

Batman stared at his protégé for a long period of time, before blinking and nodding. Together they made their way to the Zeta Tubes, determined to head off any danger to their family.

It took a few minutes to regain their bearings before Batman and Nightwing were moving down the pristine white hallway toward the command center of the League-controlled hospital. Barbara was there, typing away at a computer when they arrived. She looked paler than she should be, and her mask was drawn back revealing worried blue eyes and hair red as mahogany. Bruce narrowed his eyes at her, placing two hands on the counter before the computer.

There was a beeping from the computer and Barbara gasped lightly, only then bringing her eyes up to meet with Dick and Bruce.

"What's going on, Babs?" Dick asked quietly, leaning forward to try to glimpse the computer screen. She moved it away, not quite willing to share the details of her findings just yet. The printer behind her started spitting paper, and she grabbed the sheets before either of them could take a look.

"Babs, you're really starting to worry me here," Dick said, laughing nervously.

She looked at him them, really looked at him, and the smile dropped from Dick's face. Her eyes were glistening with fresh tears and her mouth set sternly. He hadn't seen her with that look in years, not since –

But his mind refused to go there. Refused to conjure the ghost of Jason Todd when there was something so wrong with Barbara.

"Barbara. What's happened." It was Bruce now, his voice full of the Bat with little of his daily persona. It was imposing, imperious, and difficult to leave unacknowledged, but Barbara simply turned away with a gesture for them to follow.

"I…" She started when they had turned down two separate corridors. "I found someone while I was searching the pods. I didn't think it was possible, but the DNA results have just come back and…" She stopped before a door so abruptly that Bruce and Dick almost ran straight into her. She glanced up at Bruce, eyes still sparkling in the fluorescent lighting.

And then she opened the door.

There was a boy inside. A familiar boy. White sheets were pulled up to his chest, but the bruising beneath was harshly evident in the lighting. There was dirt that had been methodically wiped away from his face by the nurse, but even with the grime there was no mistaking the boy's identity. The child twisted this was and that, whimpering softly and repeating the name "Bruce" and "Dad" over and over with little coherence.

Bruce stumbled as though he'd been struck by Superman. He would have fallen to his knees if not for Dick's arm moving to catch him in the last moment.

Barbara was already moving to the bed, resting gentle fingers against the boy's brow and whispering softly in his ear. She turned to Bruce, handing him the papers she'd had clutched under her arm. "He's a perfect match. I've got fingerprints running, but preliminary analysis gives a positive ID as well."

"How?" Bruce said, but his voice was so strangled and dark that the word barely made it out.

Barbara shook her head. "I don't know. He was in one of the pods. He hasn't said much beyond your name, and he hasn't been awake long enough for anyone to question him."

"Is he…"

"He's got a high fever and he's been through hell –" she turned for confirmation from the nurse, who nodded as she finished wiping the boy's face with cool water. "He's got bruising over 70 percent of his body and there's evidence that his bones have been broken in several places, his hands are torn torn to shreds, but…" She paused, turning back to the child before her, "He's alive."

Bruce stumbled forward, reaching the opposite side of the bed as the nurse vacated the area and left them alone in the room. His eyes searched the boy, up and down, noting small scars that the boy from his memory and this one shared impossibly. His eyes stopped when they came to the bandaged hands, some blood showing through, before continuing up. He reached a hand out, trembling so badly that he could barely leave it to rest on the boy's forehead. "Jason?" He said.

The boy's brow furrowed, but then he moved, leaning into his father's hand and squinting hard as he opened pale green-blue eyes.

And then started screaming.

A/N: well… here it is. Might add more chapters depending on reviewer turnout. 3